A whole year?

Who cares?

A good question to ask yourself before writing anything for public consumption is, "Who cares?" In this case, I couldn't find what I was looking for, so I began writing what I couldn't find, using what we learned - often the hard way - along the way. I've assumed that others in the same situation might care. This blog is for potential exchange students and their families.

This time, Chile

She's going away again, but with far less drama this time. No underage Spanish girl told at the last minute that she can't come here, which means that Chloe can't go there. No searching for State Department loopholes in a post-September-11 world. No exhorting generous volunteers to be even more generous and to spend even more of their time on two kids they don't know and will probably never know. No worrying about long-time organization members being more concerned with rocking the considerable boat than following through on promises made to kids. Looked like there might be another trip to San Francisco to apply for a visa in person, but there are simple ways to get around that, I've been told. About fourteen times, because I've asked about twenty times.

Chloe's been accepted and has turned in her last application, and so far this has been a non-event. We're waiting to see how financial aid will affect the total picture and we can't do much until that's sorted out. She's going through an agency that gets paid to do this sort of thing and the few people we've talked to there have been friendly and helpful. Turns out there's a big difference between being 15 and being gone for your junior year of high school and 19 and being gone for half of your junior year of college.

When Chloe was in elementary school I said, after much whining, that she could have a fish when she went to college (fish creep me out - the tropical-fish-eating scene in A Fish Called Wanda gives me nightmares, so there will never be one in this house). A document stating as much was produced and I was asked to sign it. Shortly before moving into her house at school this year, we were talking about how exciting that was going to be and a friend said, somewhat facetiously, "Now you can get a pet, like a fish!" Until that moment, Chloe had forgotten all about the damn fish deal.

So, the document was produced again and now she has a  goldfish. I don't know which was more important: the fish, or the making me pay up after all those years. Not really, of course I know which was more important. She has discovered that fish provide little in the way of interactive companionship, and the culmination of the long wait for that fish has proven to be anti-climactic, although that's not something she's keen to admit, at least to her mother the fish-hater. The fish is, however, still alive. And if it is to stay alive it will have to find new living quarters because it ain't coming home while his (she's decided it's a he) indifferent owner is studying abroad.

I remember when this was all trees

I am officially 180 years old. This weekend I went by myself to a family birthday party (first-birthday party, although the mom is only six years younger than me) because Steve was working. I've gone to family gatherings by myself before, but there's always been a kid at home who was doing something else at the time. This time, there would be no kid coming home: I went by myself because that's all there is, and all there will be.

The thought of having toddlers calling me Mommy right now is enough for me to chew my arm off to get out of the room, but this weekend was just one more confirmation that things will be different from now on. Not bad, but not the same. I was adrift among people a generation older than me with grandchildren, and people around my age (a few older) with kids still at home. My function was as bellwether: after seeing me alone, parents with kids in their early teens are smacked upside the head with the reality that in just a few short years they will be attending family gatherings with a part of their families missing. And that it will be rather sooner than they'd realized that they'll be redefining their lives.

That, and our 25th wedding anniversary is at the end of the month. People's parents have been married for 25 years - how can it be that I've been around long enough to have been married for a quarter of a century?

Who'll drink the milk?

The worst part about having no kids left at home? We're going to have to start buying milk in fractions of gallons and that's what old people do. The milkman delivered quarts of milk to my grandparents. Quarts! I remember bringing the quaint little cartons into the house and wondering why they even bothered with such small quantities. Christopher drinks a quart in one sitting. We used to buy two gallons at a time, then finally realized that we needed only one at at time. I have a feeling I'll be dumping partially consumed gallons of milk that have gone sour until I can ease myself into buying half gallons. But quarts? Old people buy quarts because there's no one left at home to drink it all up before it spoils. No one left at home.

It's just us

Once again Chloe doesn't live here anymore, although this time she's closer than an ocean away. Yesterday we moved her into her dorm, to her room on the fourth floor, exactly eleventy-billion flights of steps up, after walking uphill to get to the first flight of steps. No, no elevator to assist with moving in, but it might be a cure for the freshman 15. I love these dorm rooms and have wanted to live in one ever since I visited a high school friend who lived there. She's on the top floor so they have vaulted ceilings and it looks and feels like living in a treehouse. Her roommate is really nice and they live very close to the new state-of-the-art rec center so Chloe should be in good shape.

On the way home Steve, out of nowhere, says, "I don't have to wear my bathrobe anymore." Well, hon, you might want to wear it in the kitchen in the morning when your sister is looking over to see what's up. Then, while waiting for the ferry, he was joking about me fishing through my purse getting money to buy a can of pop and he told me to hurry up. I told him to keep his pants on. "When we get home I won't have to." Apparently we're taking different paths to processing our emotions related to our last kid leaving home and it being just the two of us from now on.

They're leaving home

Chloe's friend has foiled my plot to be nowhere near any of them when they leave each other for college. We use Chloe's departure for Spain as a cold, hard touchstone: nothing will ever be as bad as that day. It's been almost two years and I still can't describe to anyone that morning on the ferry when Chloe's two best friends walked off the boat to go to school while Chloe stayed behind to go to the airport. Even that was almost more than I could write.

Chloe's friend leaves for Bennington on Wednesday and Chloe asked if we could take them to the airport. Of course we can. Oh, crap. That means I'll be there when she leaves her best friend that she's had an otherworldly connection with since the first time they saw each other when they were two years old. No, I won't. I'll be in the car. At the other end of the airport reading headlines from the newspaper stand. Wandering the parking garage looking at cars. Inspecting the garbage cans for freshly discarded, still-usable gels and liquids. I'll be there to pick up the pieces, but I will not be there to witness Chloe say goodbye to her best friend and to the life they've known and loved so far. Or to watch her friend's mother, a good friend of mine who is not at all looking forward to her daughter's departure, watch them leave each other. A while ago - we might have had a glass or six of wine - we were talking about this day and I mentioned that Chloe had spontaneously said, "I'm going to have such a great life! Aren't you excited for me?" and we both cried. I'm staying away so as to not contribute to that volatile combination. Sure, exciting things are on the horizon. But the horizon is out there somewhere and in the moment it doesn't mitigate the profound sadness of leaving each other while wondering if anything will ever be the same again.